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Friday, 25 October 2013

Over the past few weekend I've been slowly, but surely, creating a new unit - the Crimson Skulls.
at the moment I only have a squad of 5 as I was playing around with the colours until I felt happy, in the future they will be a 10 strong unit
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A small detachment of the Crimson Skulls - led by Sgt. Fleischer

The Crimson Skulls are a mercenary company that have gathered strength over the past few decades, based primarily in a sector neighbouring the Palladian Sector. They are a reliable group taking on a variety of contracts from security work to urban pacification, however, they are well aware of the saying 'A dead mercenary doesn't need paying' and so always look out for themselves, and always reserve the right to cancel a contract.

They will only follow orders form their chain of command and do not care for the causes of their employers, but they are well equipped and well trained, most commanders are will to overlook their negatives in favour of having a versatile, heavy hitting unit.

Recently, Crimson Skull detachments have been spotted landing all over Edethor, especially in areas of heavy insurgent activity. Their are a lot of questions surrounding the Skulls, What are they doing in the Palladian Sector? How will their arrival effect the upcoming war? but more importantly - Who is employing them?

The Breakers are a nice change of pace from my previous armies, which where small, elite forces. Whereas the Breakers are a massive wave of undertrained and badly equipped masses, protecting a small, hardened element at its core. I've used the army list in the Imperial Armour book The Badab War (Volume One) which is used to represent a secessionist force and is perfect for what I need here

Here is a brief overview of the Breakers themselves

Elements
of the Traitor Blades of Fire have successfully infiltrated the mining
community of Diruam Metallorum, known as ‘The Breakers’

The Breaker Community gets its
name for the massive rock crushing machines that are scattered around the local
area, and most of
the population are employed in the destruction of the rocks and boulders taken
from the nearby mines and extracting the Ores within.

The Breakers have suffered
disproportionately at the hands of their so-called protectors. They have in the
past even assisted Palladian investigations into rebellions of other
communities, only to be repaid with pillaging and mass executions of‘Rebellious Instigators’- The Breakers have lost all faith in the
Imperial Creed and are now fighting back to protect their community.

With the arrival of the Traitor
Blades, the Breakers have become more aggressive. Most of the Breakers have
little care of the happenings outside the community, but now a cult has formed
in devotion of their ‘Saviours’ and is growing rapidly, taking up their new
masters beliefs and are willing to die in service to their new, superhuman
overlords.

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Some of the Breakers have devoted themselves to their new masters more than others and have become cultists

Unbeknown to the Breakers – the
Traitor Blades care little for their pathetic devotion. They are simply using
the Breakers as cannon fodder and to mask their operations in that sector. Those who read Colonel Scipio's Blog will think that the Cultists look familiar, and that is because they do, I've bought them off Scipio and are now using them as a single 30odd strong human shield!

And Introducing Sergeant Quirinus Decanus, who is currently leading the Traitor Blades in the area and stirring up the Breakers

Quirinus was promoted to Sergeant just before the split in the Chapter but is considered something of a promising Champion amongst the traitors, gathering more marines to his side than would normally be expected.

Monday, 14 October 2013

Just a quick one today - As promised here's the scenario rules for the Evacuation! mission that myself and Colonel Scipio played over the weekend

I must say that the scenario worked very well first time out, however feel free to comment with any suggestions or on how you found the scenario

See you next time

Coldsteel

EVACUATION!

Scenario

The
defenders are in the final stages of evacuating a now compromised secret base.
The attackers’ hunter-killer force is trying to pinpoint the location of the
base, and one of the Lead elements of that force has finally found them.

Forces

Both Forces
are selected using the standard Force Organisation Chart to a points cost
selected by the players, however the attacker gains and extra 50% of the
points. For example, if a 1000 points limit is agreed, the attacker has 1500
points to spend

Objective/Victory
Conditions

The defenders must defend the landing pad to the rear of the
of their deployment zone in order to evacuate, the attackers must destroy the
landing pad

If the Landing Pad is destroyed then the attackers win, if
not then it means victory for the defenders

Set up/Deployment

Defenders set up within 12” of the landing Pad.

The attackers Lead
Element sets up at least 24” away from any defender units, all other units
start as a reserve

The Lead Element is single Troops choice,
including any dedicated transports or a single unit with the ‘Scouts’ Universal
Special Rule

To represent the fact that the attacker’s forces are spread
over a wide region searching for the Defenders and that they are now rushing to
the area, the attacker’s forces start in reserve, but enter the battlefield in
the following way:

Each unit rolls a D6 and applies any modifiers below, if the
total is 6 or more the unit in question has reached the area and joins the
attack (an unmodified roll of 6 is always a success). Then roll a D6 and refer
to the diagram to see which board edge it enters from.

Modifiers:

Fast attack +1

Heavy Support –1

Unit with a
Dedicated Transport +1

Every Turn
after the 1st +1

(for example
turn 4 would have a +3 modifier)

Units with
‘Scout’ and/or ‘Move Through Cover’ Special Rules +1

First Turn

Roll off
between the two players to determine who gets the first turn

Game Length

On the 6th
turn and every turn after the defender rolls a D6, on a 4+ the last shuttle
lifts off and the game ends, a roll lower than 4 and the shuttle is yet to take
off and the game goes on for another turn

Destroying the Landing Pad

The landing
pad had 14 Armour and 3 structure points

On a Glancing
hit the Landing Pad losses a Structure Point on a roll of a 6

On a Penetrating
hit the Landing Pad losses a Structure Point on a roll of 4+

When the
Landing Pad is reduced to 0 Structure Points it is destroyed

Special Rules

Forward Sentries – Any defender units with the ‘Scout’
Special Rule may deploy up to 24” from the landing Pad

Deep Strike – Any attacking units that have the ‘Deep
Strike’ Special Rule may use the Deep Strike Rules as normal instead of
entering using the scenario rules

Saturday, 12 October 2013

Tonight saw the third of a series of battle fought between my Loyalist Blades Of Fire marines and Colonel Scipio's Palladian Guard.

This time we played a scenario of my own devising, entitled Evacuation!
The story behind the scenario is simple - Task Force Minerva has been pushed back and now their encampment is under threat and Daxos has ordered the encampment evacuated. The Palladians are spread over a wide area searching for the Blades.

And now they have found them.

The Exact rules will follow in a future post, however I've tried to capture the essence of an attacking army spread over and area rushing to the sight of the objective, with fast and scouty units getting there quicker than lumbering tanks and slow units. And the Attacker have the advantage of being able to bring more forces to the party/battle

As you can see my (rather small) army is entrenched around the objective - in this case a landing pad and Colonel Scipio has just one Infantry Platoon in the top right.

In the first couple of turns, Colonel Scipio failed to get any other units on the table and the Platoon took a beating from the Custodian, although the HQ element managed to wipe out all but one of my Devastators in a single charge! however, said HQ element was then mown down by Bolter fire the Tactical squad close by. This was a devastating (excuse the pun) blow to me as Scipio had effectively eliminated one of my Anti tank units!

The Death of the Devastators

The Counter Assault (note the Palladian Casualties at the bottom!)

On turn 4 all but 1 of Scipio's Forces where on the table and I was being over-run, with my Multi-melta wielding Razorback failing to take down his tanks and my left flank starting to collapse due to almost all of my opponent's army arriving on that flank and blasting the Custodian with shell after shell.

Even the Scouts had to get stuck in on the left flank!

Turn 5 saw Daxos rampaging through the remaining infantry on the right flank, supported by the Tactical Squad, however Palladian Veterans had managed to slip in behind the defensive line.

It was at this point that I just had too much to shoot at! I had been over-run completely and the landing pad had start to come under fire

Palladian Veterans slip through the Blades defences

Turn 6 and only Daxos and one other Vanguard, as well as the majority of the tactical was all that remained, as the scouts had sacrificed themselves trying to destroy one of the Demolishers. The infantry killing was merely a sideshow compared to the bombardment the Landing pad was taking.

The landing pad was still standing at the end of turn 6, however, under the scenario rules the game only finishes after a roll of 4+ every turn after the 6th, and after a roll of a 3 victory was slowly slipping from my grasp.

Turn 7 saw the Veterans and Captain Severus' retinue had closed on the objective, the Tactical Squad lacked the firepower to deal with them all, and although the Severus' Squad was decimated the Veterans managed to get 2 Meltabombs on the Objective, weakening the structure.

Luckly for me Scipio's Tanks failed to finish it off, so it all depended on the end-of-game roll, the Die was cast......

........ a 1

And that was it, the last of the Tactical Squad was taken out, and Daxos was too far to do anything. In the end a Demolisher Cannon dealt the killing blow

I was Defeated

I was a cracking, nail-biting, exciting game - the scenario mechanics worked really well and it lead to one of the closest fought games I have played.

Next time I will share the Scenario rules as well as update Daxos' story

Friday, 4 October 2013

I have recently (and I mean recently) finished one of my projects - this one in particular is the last component, for now at least, of my Loyalist Blades army.

Those who subscribe to Colonel Scipio's blog will be aware of the on-going campaign between the two of us, and as a sort of journal I have been writing the battles and the interim between them in a story, And to introduce the new model here is an excerpt from said story

'
[Daxos] moved to the far end of the Hanger where the source of the light
originated, there he found Techmarine Praxiteles, busy working on the shell of
a Dreadnought.

“How fares Ezekiel?” Daxos asked the Techmarine

“He slumbers” replied Praxiteles, not once taking his eyes off his work
“He is fortunate, if my predecessor had not upgraded the Auxiliary power
generator he would be with the Emperor. I have replaced the damaged arm servo
but the damage to the legs is far more severe than I had feared, and the
assault cannon still has much to be done.”

Daxos looked at the husk, The Imperial Guard had ripped the chassis to
pieces, but luckily they had not breached the sarcophagus.

“Duration?” asked Daxos tentatively

Praxiteles looked at Daxos and shook his head “2 weeks with a full team
of servitors and the proper facilities, here? 3 months if the Emperor is with
us”

Daxos grimaced, Ezekiel was a major asset to his task force and this
was a serious blow to his mission, but he had to push on.'

So, with a major fire support asset out of action, things are looking bad for Task Force Minerva, what can Praxiteles do to remedy the situation?

And here it is - The Custodian Walker

I got the idea while generally thinking about how Space Marine armouries. They would have servitors for the small stuff like arms and ammunition, cranes and the like for the big stuff, but what about the stuff in between? like missiles and artillery shells? Then I remembered the final battle in the film 'Aliens' and so the Custodian was born

The model is based on a Dreadknight without all the armoured plates, I then added guitar strings for the exposed power cable and a Land Speeder Tornado Assault Cannon as the main armament.

I've tried to make it look like its not designed for a combat role, but has had to be jury-rigged into service due to the situation, let me know what you think - all feedback welcome!